#432  Don't Cause Pain, Give Pleasure

Marriage can be either the source of life's greatest joys... or the root of much misery, even tragedy.

There is a five-word formula that is the key to a joyous marriage. "Don't cause pain, give pleasure." Both with words and deeds, be careful not to cause your spouse needless pain. And do as much as you can to give your spouse pleasure. Your capacity for kindness is unlimited!

7 Cheshvan

Yahrtzeit of Rabbi Meir Shapiro of Lublin (1887-1933), the founder and driving force behind the Daf Yomi, a program of daily Talmud study. Today, tens of thousands of Jews study the "daily daf," and every seven-and-a-half years a "siyum" (completion) of the Talmud is held with large celebrations in Madison Square Garden and other locations worldwide. Rabbi Shapiro represented the Jews in the Polish Senate, and he built the grand Chachmei Lublin Yeshiva in Poland, a building which remains standing till today. Sadly, Rabbi Shapiro passed away at the young age of 46. His remains were later re-interred to a cemetery in Jerusalem. 

7 Cheshvan

And you shall love Hashem your God ... (Deuteronomy 6:5)
And you shall love your neighbor as yourself... (Leviticus 19:18).

Both of these statements are positive commandments. We might ask: How can a commandment demand that we feel something? Since love is an emotion, it is either there or it is not there.

The Torah does not hold that love is something spontaneous. On the contrary, it teaches that we can and should cultivate love. No one has the liberty to say: "There are some people whom I just do not like," nor even, "I cannot possibly like that person because he did this and that to me."

We have within us innate attractions to God and to other people. If we do not feel love for either of them, it is because we have permitted barriers to develop that interfere with this natural attraction, much as insulation can block a magnet's inherent attraction for iron. If we remove the barriers, the love will be forthcoming.

The barriers inside us come from defects in our character. When we improve ourselves, our bad character traits fall away, and as they fall away, we begin to sense that natural love which we have for others and for God.

Today I shall ...
... try to improve my midos (character traits), so that I will be able to feel love for God and for my fellow man.